STV Player for Windows Phone 8 lets you tap into on-demand streaming of your favourite shows

We all love catch-up TV services, enabling us to venture outside the front door without fear that we'd miss the next episode of our favourite show. For those who aren't aware of the broadcaster, Scottish Television (or STV) is essentially ITV in the northern parts of the UK. The company has an official catch-up app available for Windows Phone. Tune in for all the details past the break.

So what can one do with the official STV (www.stv.tv) Windows Phone app? As is the case with other official broadcaster apps, you're able to stream and enjoy your favourite shows after they've aired on the main channel. STV keeps episodes available online for 30 days. But that's not all, even if you live outside Scotland, you can still enjoy some superb content, including classic Taggart episodes.

The app itself is both designed and developed to work in Scotland, but as noted above, there is content available to residents across the UK. Favourites are on-hand to help you mark content that you enjoy and there are parental controls for those who wish to confirm they're over 18, configuring a PIN to prevent younglings from accessing questionable content.

The app itself is well designed and fits in nicely with other top content available on the Windows Phone Store. Since it's an official offering, we're pleased to see yet more support from the UK media, enabling consumers to enjoy their favourite shows on Microsoft's mobile platform.

Since the app is free you'll have to put up with some advertising, but this shouldn't come as much of a surprise if you're used to ITV (or STV) broadcasting - and yes, you can even stream shows over mobile data connections.

You can download STV Player from the Windows Phone Store for free (Windows Phone 8 only). Cheers, Josh, for the heads up!